Ad hoc networks are wireless, spontaneous networks, that do not require the presence of any fixed infrastructure and that are capable of being dynamically organized without the intervention of the users. The presence of terminals, also called nodes, equipped with a radio interface, whether they are microcomputers, personal digital assistants, devices mounted in vehicles or even sensors, is sufficient to be able to create an ad hoc network. In an ad hoc mobile network, consisting of nodes provided with a radio communication interface, a node of the network can communicate directly with its neighbours, that is to say, those which are within range of its own interface, and serves as router for the other mobile nodes of the networks. A new node arriving in the network must make itself known to the rest of the network and discover the topology of the network. For this, it announces itself to the neighbouring nodes of the network by broadcasting one or more information items defining it which are conveyed from node to node. It receives, by listening to the network, information items defining the other nodes forming the network and thus establishes the topology of the network. This type of network is particularly useful when no wired connection is available, for example in interventions on the site of a disaster and, more generally, for the rapid deployment of a network.